Thursday, February 16, 2006

Prayer Space

While reading a book by Tony Jones. The Sacred Way I came across this prayer site from the Irish Jesuit Priests. It is a great place to go and be guided through a prayer time. I pray you find it worthwhile, and spiritually uplifitng

www.sacredspace.ie

God be with us all as we live to serve and praise Him in our dialy lives.

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

The Gods of the Age

The God’s of the Age

Convenience and Comfort.  They are the new gods of the age.  Huge sums of money are paid by all of us if we are honest just so we can be comfortable and have convenience.  These gods have been promoted at the expense of diligence and dedication and discipline.  Here is the problem though.  Not all things are convenient and comfortable.  Not all things we may want can be had for a monetary value.  There are some things that come only through diligence, discipline and dedication.  God cares more about our diligent, disciplined, dedicated devotion to Him than about our comfort and convenience.

A relationship with God is one of those things.  No Church, no matter how convenient and comfortable, can give you a relationship with God.  There in is the problem.  Imported with many people on many Sundays is the belief that the church is there to serve them.  Pastors fallen under the weight of please congregants at the expense of speaking real Truth.  Pastor try to honestly, most of the time, give people the easiest answers to life’s issues.  They try to find and then preach about the most comfortable and convenient way to a relationship with God, who is to often mistaken for an extra terrestrial bellhop.  

Christianity is simple in its call to all people to diligently seek the Truth in God and live out that Truth in a disciplined and dedicated manner.  But this invalidates our hopes and attempts to make serving God convenient and comfortable.  Those two gods must be left at the altar of conversion.  To serve Christ, to live by the Spirit of God will demand a holy devotion to God.  It can only be lived through divine strength given us daily at the workplace of prayer and applied Bible study.  Peter tell us “through His Divine power we have been given all we need for life and Godliness.” John reminds us that “this is love for God, that we keep His commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome.”

There comes a time for all who have been called of God that we must tear ourselves from the tediousness of this fading and failing sin filled world and enter a sacred, secret and reverent place that no one else can enter with us or for us.  In this place we meet with our God.  We meet not to have our whims fulfilled like little children before a benevolent genie, but we meet with our God is silent Holy humble reverence.  We bear our soul our sins and failings and victories and seek to know the mind of God on all things.  We lift up the burdens of others seeking the Will of God to be done and for His Kingdom to come.  In these daily moments we realize again that we are the agents of the Kingdom we are the servants of God on Earth.  We realize our part in the bringing of the Kingdom of God.  We take our orders from the only Wise, True and Holy God and then proceed from our secret place to live out those orders with the power of the Spirit residing within us.  “Greater is he who is in us than he that is in the world.”

Let us once again raise a cry for the false gods of convenience and comfort to be banished from our lives until the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God.  When the Kingdom of God is fulfilled, then will come our rest and comfort.  Until then let us only find comfort in the secret times with our Lord who in those moments can give us rest and refreshing while wrapped in the loving embrace of His Holy Spirit.